OTHER BIRDS. 245 



In August it is difficult to bag on the wing, as it will 

 not permit a footman to come within shot. It, how- 

 ever, seems to have no fear of a horseman or a vehicle, 

 and is easily bagged on the ground, the sportsman 

 riding or driving as near as he pleases. About the 

 middle of August they leave the high lands and collect 

 in immense numbers in the low lands of the streams, 

 more or less constantly flying back and forth, and the 

 sportsman can have splendid wing shooting. By the end 

 of August all, or nearly all, have disappeared as silently 

 and mysteriously as they came. 



On almost every part of the plains where running 

 streams are bordered by grassy meads, the Bobolink may 

 be found in early spring the same light-hearted, merry 

 creature that he is in the east. He spends this portion of 

 his life in tumbling in short eccentric flights through the air, 

 pouring forth almost incessantly his ecstatic song. They 

 arrive in immense flocks, but pair very soon after, and 

 under a cover of a thick bush or bunch of grass they 

 make on the ground a round, well-built, softly-lined 

 nest, in which they rear four little ones, feeding them 

 in the nest until fully fledged. When the young are 

 grown, the birds collect in flocks almost innumerable, 

 and many may be bagged by a single charge of No. 10 

 shot. Though very fat and excellent, they are not, I 

 think, quite so delicate in flavour as later in the season 

 when, after migration, they have become reed or rice birds. 

 When they arrive in spring the male has already donned 

 his brilliant coat By the time he is ready to leave 

 before the 1st of September he has exchanged this for the 

 sober dark brown, almost black, and the sexes are 

 indistinguishable. 



Beside the birds above mentioned, the prairie furnishes 

 nesting places for a great variety of smaller birds, 

 songsters and others, which, however, furnish neither 

 good sport to the hunter nor fine food for the table. 



About the middle of September the great Arctic 



